Monday, November 28, 2011

If Annie had discovered the divine pleasures of bone marrow, surely she would have sung a different tune.

Marrow is the only thing onourmindswhen we head to BLACK by ezard, the latest venture by Melbourne chef Teage Ezard, opening at The Star casino. Ezard is the creative force behind two hat restaurant ezard and Asian street food diner Gingerboy.

BLACK dining room

BLACK signals a new direction for Ezard, delivering an Australian grill menu that focuses on beef and seafood. The venue is cool and slick, a mix of elegant booth seating and leather upholstered seats, fronted by floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look onto Pyrmont Bay.

The open kitchen provides a complimentary floor show for patrons. We note the water bath bubbling merrily away, used to cook all steaks sous vide according to the menu.

The bar at BLACK

Complimentary brioche with butter and volcanic black salt

Complimentary loaves of brioche are a decadent way to start the meal, and even though the bread is already yellow from the amount of butter used, it's hard not to slather on a little more, especially when it allows you to sprinkle on flakes of volcanic black salt too. Staff happily provide more brioche when we polish two mini loaves in a flash.

When faced with a dilemma over what to order, the best thing to do is share. We engineer a three-course degustation of entrees which allows us to sample everything we'd been eying lustfully on the menu. The organic farm egg is a buried within a nest of crunchy potato twigs, eventually spilling its runny yolk over a bed of potato cream.

Thin shavings of white Alba truffles are rather subdued in flavour but we relish the melting fattiness of the Iberico ham.

The beef tartare is barely recognisable at first, hidden beneath a glossy red blanket of beetroot jelly. We find a pillow of tartare beneath the jelly - pre-mixed but seasoned well. I find the beetroot tends to overwhelm this dish with its earthiness but the grains of puffed wild rice give a pleasant textural contrast.

Marrow flan $26

golden brioche, celeriac cream and king brown mushrooms

It's the marrow flan we'd all been looking forward, an artful arrangement of miniature brioche toasts topped with sauteed king brown mushrooms and globules of glistening marrow. It's a sinfully rewarding entree, from the quivering tower of celeriac cream, to the miniature fried quail egg and the eye-rolling fattiness of marrow treasure.

This isn't cheap dining. You can find a main at $29 for homemade gnocchi but the rest move upwards from $42. Steaks on the woodfire grill start at $45 for the grass fed 200g Angus fillet and top out at $140 for the dry aged grain fed one kilogram Angus T-bone (recommended to share among the table).

Lex's rump cap is one of the more unusual cuts available. Commonly available at Brazilian churrasco and known as picanha, the rump cap is one of the juiciest cuts you can get. It's soft, fatty and flavoursome, made even better with a splash of marrow and shallot sauce that is poured at the table.

Scotch fillet grain fed Angus MBS 4+ 300g $65with truffle butter $8

Suze has the scotch fillet with truffle butter - we find the butter tastes more of mushroom than truffle. On a side note, although the use of sous vide does mean consistently tender meat, do others find a hollow trade off with texture? Sous vide often seems to involve a loss in toothsome chewiness that is half the carnivorous pleasure in eating meat.

I'd gone for the 400g dry aged grass fed Angus rib eye, a satisfying slab of meat cooked and served on the bone. It's cooked to perfection, although the fattiness of the meat combined with the extra marrow in the sauce causes some shallow breathing at one point.

We share a mix of side dishes - the potato gratin is perhaps a little strongly flavoured with dill and the pieces of chorizo in the cos salad are tiny. The wood grilled vegetables include cauliflower, eggplant and zucchini smothered in Romesco sauce and toasted almonds. We unanimously love the buttered potato puree which is thick and creamy with butter, and silky smooth on the tongue.

Desserts range in price from $18 to $22. There is heated debate at our table as to whether a pound cake should be described as 'heavy' or 'light' which leads us to order the apple pound cake so we can settle the argument. Although we obliterate the syrup soaked pound cake and the boozy Calvados ice cream, it still doesn't lead to any clear resolution.

Honeycrunch is an elegant presentation of clover honey parfait coated in fine crumbs of ginger biscuits. The shard of honeycomb is delicately bubbled but it's the white powder beneath it that has us puzzled. Only clarification from the waiter confirms it as cinnamon powder much to Noods' delight, who guessed correctly.

The description of the chocolate dessert on the menu fails to adequately convey the spectacle involved with this dish. It arrives as an orb of chocolate over which the waiter pours a warm couverture ganache. In a scene somewhat similar to the eight texture chocolate cake at Quay, we watch the chocolate slowly melt and fall in upon itself.

The chocolate shell caves in upon itself to reveal the scoop of banana ice cream inside. It's a fun dessert that tastes like a molten Ferrero Rocher dessert, particularly with the rubble of hazelnuts at the bottom of the dish.

I agree sous vide will never give the meat that charred and slightly crusty texture of a grill. I find some restaurants do this with a piece of round fillet which in my opinion achieves the soft tender consistency but what's the point of a steak without its decadecnt fat?

Like you, I would have gone for the rib eye on the bone as well, but I am very interested to know which steak was the best if at all you guys tried each other's mains, considering the rump was the most expensive and Suze's rib eye was sous vide. I can never get myself to order a piece of rump because of the lack of fat content that often makes it chewy but this $75 MBS 9+ is like a modest looking woman dressed to the hilt to impress.

I gotta agree with the comments above/below... food looks divine :O Yes expensive eating out but i say worth it for special occasions. can I post some of your pictures on our page; https://www.facebook.com/MatesChoicethanks

Definite wow factor with the presentation (and prices!). The meal looks amazing. By the way, my mum ate there the other day but didn't realise what a big deal it is - she forgot the name of the restaurant, was disappointed they didn't have garlic bread, and was appalled at the price of the steak.

Hi Chopin - We only tried three of the nine steaks listed on the menu. I was really happy with my rib eye but the bit of rump cap I sampled was pretty tasty too! It's also worth noting that all the steaks here are prepared sous vide according to the menu detail.

Hi OohLookBel - lol that's too funny about the garlic bread!

Hi Joey - That's not something that I'm aware of, but perhaps it's worth checking with the restaurant at the time of booking? There was a rather spectacular private dining alcove at the back - perhaps this is what the minimum spend referred to?

Hi Hannah - Actually you weren't the only one to think that! It was soon forgotten with the first mouthful though :)

Wow! I just can't get enough of your blog. Every time I check it, there is always something new and something delicious! Keep up the good work. You just never fail on how to make your readers/viewers drool. :)

Your photos have sealed the deal - have been toying with the idea of paying this place a visit. The photo of the rib eye was not what i needed to see before bed-time though ... mouth watering and no way to satisfy a steak craving so late at night :-(

This place is delicious, I went for a 30th & wasn't sure what to expect after some mediocre press. It was all wrong! We loved the bar, the food & the service. It's different to anything in Sydney as well. I want to go back & try the marrow flab now. I had the snapper & handcut chips & asparagus AMAZING (we had a group of 8 there was no minimum spend. Only if we wanted the private dinning room which we didn't!)

We were planning on going to the Black. We passed by and saw first a waiter and then a chef helping themselves from a plate meant for one of the seated customers... Not going there any time soon!!! If you want to have an open kitchen live up to it!!!